On social media platform X, users have been prompting AI model Grok to generate non-consensual sexual images of women, and sometimes children. Experts say the laws around those images are murky in Canada, and Grok is currently under investigation for a potential previous breach of Canadians’ privacy. The backlash against Grok’s image generation has been…
Canadian-founded D-Wave Quantum announced yesterday that it has reached an agreement to buy fellow American quantum computing firm Quantum Circuits for $550 million USD. That $550-million price tag consists of $300 million in D-Wave common stock and $250 million in cash. The acquisition, which is expected to close later this month, is set to combine…
The Alberta Machine Intelligence Institute (Amii) is expanding efforts to increase AI literacy with a new scholarship program aimed at environmental and atmospheric science students. “Our CEO [Cam Linke] often talks about the people in the work of tomorrow needing to be bilingual. What he means is that you need to be an expert in…
On a snowy winter night at a dinner in Toronto, the founder of a Polish agri-food startup sat elbow-to-elbow with the former CEO of the Ontario Chamber of Commerce. “Canada has an incredible opportunity to benefit from the kind of innovation coming out of Europe right now.” Vikram Khurana, TBDC. At another table, a partner…
Searching for news online isn’t always a great experience these days. Between algorithm updates that prioritize SEO-heavy ads and the growth of AI-generated search summaries, studies show that search engines are often inundated with low-quality results. Last year, digital intelligence platform Similarweb estimated that global search traffic dropped 15 percent due to AI. That means…
BY THE OPTIMIST DAILY EDITORIAL TEAM For decades, climate action skeptics have waved a tired argument: you can’t grow the economy and cut carbon emissions at the same time. But a new report suggests that narrative may be heading for retirement. In fact, a global shift is well underway, and it’s flipping that assumption on…
BY THE OPTIMIST DAILY EDITORIAL TEAM A flurry of family visits might leave you reeling and wondering, “What just happened?” The intensity of spending time with family may be emotionally and physically demanding, whether the commotion has just ended or looms on the horizon. Psychologists have dubbed this phenomenon “family jet lag,” recognizing the numerous…
Imagine a farm, with a barn sitting atop a lush, green pasture filled with chickens plucking away at the grass. Then, the barn starts to move on its own. The barn, it turns out, is a robot. That’s Lentelus Farms, which has land in both Courtenay and Kelowna, BC, run by farmer Dave Semmelink. He…
Caseway founder and CEO Alistair Vigier says his company and The Canadian Legal Information Institute (CanLII) are moving towards a settlement, just over a year after the online database sued the legaltech startup for copyright infringement. Vigier told Canadian Lawyer this week that the parties “resolved the major issues [in the case] and agreed on…
Ottawa-based Backboard.io says it has raised a “substantial” pre-seed round to cure large language models (LLMs) of their “amnesia.” Founded by Assent co-founder Rob Imbeault in April 2025, Backboard is trying to address the bottleneck of limited portable memory in generative AI tools. “Building Assent taught me that unsexy infrastructure is where real enterprise value…
